{"id":1190,"date":"2019-02-14T12:27:13","date_gmt":"2019-02-14T17:27:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/read.whitefire-publishing.com\/?p=1190"},"modified":"2020-10-13T14:55:20","modified_gmt":"2020-10-13T18:55:20","slug":"soul-painter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/whitefire-publishing.com\/read\/soul-painter\/","title":{"rendered":"Soul Painter"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Soul Painter<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

by\u00a0Cara Luecht<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Miriam paints the future\u2026but can she change it?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Chicago 1890<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

People jostle their way below the windows of Miriam s warehouse home, never thinking to look up at the woman who stands alone in her quiet rooms, painting their faces. But Miriam s gift as an artist goes beyond a mere recording of what is: Miriam paints their future. Only once was she wrong.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Into her alley, a woman has been coming who doesn\u2019t match the future Miriam once saw for her. The bright girl was supposed to grow into a respected businesswoman. Instead, Ione disappears nightly into the shadows of the alley next to the cathedral with the other prostitutes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then one night, while walking through the city fog, Miriam finds Ione broken and beaten in the alley. Miriam is forced to open her home to the stranger whose face she knows so well and open her life to change she never could have foretold.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Together with Miriam\u2019s solicitor and the deacon from the cathedral across the street, Miriam and Ione must combat the evil at work in a city already rife with corruption. Women are missing: some are found floating in the river, some are never seen again. Finally engaged with the world she has so long observed, finally stirred by love and friendship, Miriam realizes the responsibility of her gifting. No longer can she just paint what will be she must now help Ione find the future she is meant to have\u2026and find her own along with it.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n

\n\t\t\t\t\t

Chapter 1<\/span><\/span><\/h3>\n\t\t\t\t\t

Chicago, 1891<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The bricks crumbled under her feet. Down by the docks,\nrepairs to the infrastructure of the thick, stretching city were considered\nmore luxury than necessity. Walking in the dark hours, after the fog slipped up\nfrom the churning lake and gave body to every shadow and mass to every lamp,\nwalking then, when even the air closed in around her, she could move freely.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Her long wool skirt blended with the fog. A hooded\ncape, buttoned at the chin, molded to the back of her head and fell over her\nface. The heavy folds draped her shoulders. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It had been years since someone had looked directly\ninto her gray eyes. She wrapped that knowledge around her like the fog, wore\nthe isolation like a second cloak, let it melt into her pores as she navigated\nthe city.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Her feet knew every cobble, every crack. She counted the\nsteps. At step nineteen, the brick gave way to yellow, desperate patches of\ngrass. Six steps later, she turned behind a fence, again counting the steps to\nthe streetlamp burning at the base of the cathedral stairs. A statue of the\nVirgin glowed in the muted light. The Virgin\u2019s robes were faded to gray and a\ncrack scarred her smooth complexion. It crawled from her hidden ear, across her\nlips, and toward the inner corner of her eye. The crack never lengthened. It\nwas almost as if the Virgin had decided when the pain should stop.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Miriam loved the Virgin. She loved how her\nstone-carved hair was pulled tight under her cascading veil. Miriam imagined\nher own brown hair becoming one with her colorless cape and falling to the\nground. On damp nights it wicked up the moisture from the stones, and, if she\nstood still enough, clung to the street. For as much as she avoided the crowds,\nshe was as much a part of the city as the immoveable, silent Virgin.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The church towered overhead. She knew the stonework,\nthe carved faces of the saints, and every piece of stained glass. The windows\nof her rooms in the upper levels of the warehouse faced the cathedral, and\nalthough she had not stepped a foot inside since childhood, she could remember\nevery detail: the sputtering candles to the right of the heavy oak doors, the\npool of water that never rippled, and how the sun cast pieces of color across\nthe heads of the penitent, kneeling parishioners.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She hadn\u2019t stepped inside since her mother\u2019s funeral.\nHer father had sat in the front pew, stone-faced, clenching her eight-year-old\nfingers. His hand trembled, once. They followed her mother\u2019s casket out of the\ndoors, down the stone steps, and watched the men load her into the wagon. When\nthey returned from her grave, they turned right, into her father\u2019s warehouse.\nHe carried Miriam up the stairs, past his offices, and into her new nursery,\nwhere he kissed the top of her head and handed her over to a motherly nurse.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They never returned to the glittering townhouse where\nher mother had hosted parties for the city\u2019s elite. As far as she knew, her\nmother\u2019s brushes still sat, a decade later, on her dressing table with her\ntangled hair wrapped around the bristles.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Miriam looked up to the carved fa\u00e7ade of the\ncathedral. She could only make out the details to the bottom of the second row\nof windows. There, the light failed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When her father died, his solicitor knocked on the\ndoor. Miriam watched him from her rooms above the warehouse. Eventually, the\nbespectacled man gave up and mailed the letters. She instructed him through\ncorrespondence to leave all as it was, to make deposits into her trust at\nregular intervals, and to send her the balance sheets. He complied and left her\nin peace. The few men who worked in the offices were paid generous pensions. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

And Miriam locked the doors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Down by the docks, the city was never akin to the\nrich, planted gardens where she\u2019d spent the years in her mother\u2019s arms. But\nthey had a flavor of their own. A reality she could smell and taste from her\nwindows above the streets. The changing landscape of people passing, hurrying,\nevery day, gave her an unlimited source of new faces to capture on canvas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The church was the center of her world even if she\nnever stepped inside. She gave, via her solicitor, and in return was rewarded\nwith glimpses into the lives of the devoted, the employed, and those on the\nperiphery. They were close to the docks and the shipbuilders. While some\nsailors populated the stone steps to wait for a priest to hear their\nconfessions, others used the deep shadows that ran through the alleyway and\nfound reason to confess.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Miriam stepped around the Virgin and out of the\nilluminated mist. There would be no one in the alley at that hour, and she was\ntempted to change her path, to veer down the narrow walkway, to see where it\nall happened. She didn\u2019t. Instead, she counted her steps back to the warehouse\ndoor, pulled her key from her pocket, inserted it into the well-oiled lock, and\nturned it. The lock opened without hesitation, as relieved to find her as she\nwas to find it, and she stepped into the dark, dusty room. She closed the door,\nlocked it behind her, and turned to the stairs. She didn\u2019t need to light a\nlamp.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Once upstairs, she made tea. She sat in her living\nroom with her feet up on cushions and her back pressed deep into the upholstery\nof her chair. Her father\u2019s chair still sat on the other side of the room, with\nhis imprint permanently registered in the sawdust stuffing. Miriam never sat in\nthe chair herself, nor had she ever thought to remove it. It filled the corner\nof the heavily decorated room as if it had grown there of its own volition, and\nshe would no more extract it from its place than she would chop down some\nunsuspecting country tree. There simply was no reason.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The cushion under her feet was red, with gold\nstitching and tassels in a rainbow of colors. On its own, it would have\nappeared ostentatious, gaudy even. But in Miriam\u2019s room, an echo of her father\u2019s\nyounger years spent in the orient, it was completely at home. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

She watched from her lead-framed, factory-grade\nwindows until the sun glinted off the cathedral\u2019s stained glass panes. When it\nreflected and caught the crystals hanging from the lampshade next to her, she\nrose, rinsed her cup and saucer, set in on the counter to dry, and found her\nbed where she would sleep until the bells of the church chimed and the school\nspilled its children into the streets. The children\u2019s faces were her favorite,\nhad been since she was a child herself, watching them from above.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They wore their day like a mask. Over the years she\nwatched as that mask slowly became their adult face, just as hers did in the\nmirror. But she painted, painted the children when the mask was still a mask.\nPainted the child, and then added layers of brush strokes over the child\u2019s\nface, predicting with color the person they would become.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n

John had made the habit of watching for her before the\nsun burned off the fog. As a deacon in the cathedral, he woke before all the\nothers in order to prepare for the morning mass. It was a congregation\nconsisting primarily of aging mothers praying for wayward sons, and wayward\nsons who had exhausted every other resource. Of course, there was never an\nopportunity to match mother with son. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The strong coffee he poured from the pot did little to\nadd to the early hour, so he turned off the lights and watched the street\nthrough the barred windows. He knew she would be by. The fog had come in heavy\nthat night and had only thickened during the pre-morning hours.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She stopped as he knew she would. Once again he took a\nstep nearer to the pane of glass. He could see a shadow of what appeared to be\nfine, small features. Under the shadow of the hood he failed to make out the\ncolor of her eyes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He wasn\u2019t sure why it mattered. It shouldn\u2019t. She was\na soul, like the countless other souls that passed by every day. She was a soul\nwho never stepped a foot into the church. He knew he should turn away, should\nreview the passages for that morning\u2019s service, should make sure everything was\nready. There were more pressing matters, more urgent needs. People walked by\nevery day, desperate, hopeless, yet she filled his thoughts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Maybe it was the way she paused to face the statue.\nHer motionless lips open with her exhale, as if she might start up a conversation.\nHe thought of her lips. Wondered if they had ever felt the pressure of a man,\nwondered how much she had in common with Mary.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mary. That\u2019s what he called her in his mind. She was\ncalled by other names. The school children whispered about her. They called her\nthe factory witch. The eldest priest called her \u201cthat poor creature.\u201d John\nnever questioned his superior about her real name. He didn\u2019t trust himself\nenough to maintain the proper demeanor of concerned, but casual indifference. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mary she was.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n

Ione shivered. She hated the fog. Hated the way it hid\nthe men. Hated the way she could hear their work boots slosh in uneven stumbles\nbefore she could see their approach. But they always knew where to find her. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

She waited at the entrance to the alley and watched\nthe strange, quiet fog-woman pause mere feet from where Ione stood. Ione\nshifted behind the hedges at the entrance to the alley. The solitary woman with\nthe ghostly white skin unsettled her far more than the men who claimed her\ntime. A drip of water fell from a low branch and traveled down her bare\nshoulder, into the void between her breasts. Ione shivered again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The clock struck four chimes. But even that bold,\nbronze beacon was dampened by the ever-thickening blanket that suffocated the\ndocks. It was time to go home, to crawl into bed with her younger sisters, and\nto look in on her mother. She moved her toes against the night\u2019s earnings\nwadded in a cloth under her stocking. The coins were taking on the chill of the\nconcrete. Her bed would be warm, her sisters\u2019 limbs smooth and soft. So unlike\nthe rough, groping hands of the men that held her still, then trembled as they\nfastened buttons and dropped the coins into her hand\u2014sometimes with a mumbled\napology, sometimes with a sneer. Her mother was too sick to ask where the money\ncame from.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ione looked up from her hiding place. The fog-woman\nhad slipped away. Ione stepped out of the shadows and into the damp light of\nthe streetlamp. In the morning, after her sisters had left for school, Ione\nwould go to the butcher\u2014to the back door, but to the butcher, nonetheless\u2014and\nshe would buy soup bones. The good ones, with meat still tucked in the\ncrevices. She would buy the bones and boil them to a rich broth, and her\nsisters would come home to something hot and good. She would spread the marrow\non a cracker for her mother, and maybe her mother would eat. Ione wiggled her\ntoes against the money one more time before stepping off the curb and into the\nstreet. It had been a profitable night.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jenny passed by\u2014a white girl with dirty hair and\ngapped teeth. She was on her way home too, only Jenny lived with her father,\none who knew how Jenny spent her nights. They made quick eye contact without\nslowing down. Jenny nodded her recognition before turning down the alley that\nled to her storefront rooms. Ione continued into the fog.
<\/p>\n\n\n